Because Tim Cook, as a homosexual, has teared up when speaking about human rights abuses of homosexual under repressive regimes, and how as the CEO of apple, he will do anything within his power to ensure your data stays safe on apple infra / hw because he personally thinks about it. Can't remember the interview, but it was quite touching actually.

He's very clear in shareholder calls / letters and in their privacy policy. So much so that he even calls out the competition[1] for doing it as Apple does not. From an economics standpoint, Apple doesn't make money on your data. They sell you overpriced but quite sophisticated hardware and became one of the most valuable companies in the world doing this. That and he advocates for a US equivalent of the GPDR[2] which absolutely and directly would impact the bottom line of companies like Google and Facebook.

Then there is Apple's official privacy policy, where they are very explicit that they don't gather personal information to sell to advertisers. In much of the non-US world, saying that and not following that is blatantly illegal.

[1] http://time.com/5433499/tim-cook-apple-data-privacy/

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/24/18017842/tim-cook-data-p...

[3] https://www.apple.com/privacy/

> Because Tim Cook, as a homosexual, has teared up when speaking about human rights abuses of homosexual under repressive regimes

...but is also more than happy to meet and shake hands with the leaders of those repressive regimes? Like the UAE, which criminalizes sodomy and deports those who identify as LGBT?

https://www.thenational.ae/uae/government/abu-dhabi-crown-pr...

Is it possible Apple, like Tim Cook, has the occasional double standard?

There's another way to look at it - Tim Cook has managed to get these leaders of repressive regimes to shake hands and do business with an openly gay man who is widely admired.

Tim Cook can only change what he has control over.

He can't change the government of the UAE.

He can change Apple's security and privacy priorities.

Right, shaking hands is literally an endorsement of everything the country does.

This must blow your mind: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fnyoobserv...

Shake hands or resign and let another person lead Apple.

Homosexuals don't have some special monopoly on honesty, nor are they immune to using emotional string pulling when they try to get you to believe what they are saying.

The reply would have been better without the first paragraph.

Regardless, Apple do collect lot of personal data. And even if they don't sell it or use it for marketing now, they could still potentially lose control of it, or change their policies down the road.

The safest approach from a privacy perspective is not to collect the data in the first place.

> Homosexuals don't have some special monopoly on honesty, nor are they immune to using emotional string pulling when they try to get you to believe what they are saying. The reply would have been better without the first paragraph.

I believe the point was that he was advocating for a cause which doesn't benefit him or directly affect him. I think it's a valid point: it's easy to fight for things that benefit you. It's like you'd be less skeptical if a rich person fights for higher taxes on the rich than when a poor person does.

I'm an attorney and have worked with several financial institutions drafting policies/statements/investor disclosures about privacy and user data. For most financial institutions user privacy is good for the bottom line but expensive so they tend to do the bare minimum. The bare minimum is not a lot but it's quite a bit more than nothing, which is what most non-medical/non-financial institutions have to do. I've never worked with a tech company on privacy matters but I would expect any company that depends on collecting and monetizing user data to be much more aggressive than the typical financial institution. That said, comparing Apple's privacy policies to those of a financial institution they are truly above and beyond any minimum regulatory standard.

I know most people don't pay them any attention but I'm really not sure you could find a more customer-focused privacy policy. I've yet to find one and I would guess I've read at least 10x as many privacy policies as the average person. Everything from what their disclosures say to how they've structured them to be easily read, easily understood, and (dare I say) engaging is indicative of just how much they prioritize user-privacy.

edit: meant non medical

Thought it was a bit funny, because 10*0=0, most people has probably never read a privacy policy.

Still, good point!

This is the same Tim Cook that praised a conference to promote China's "cyber-sovereignty" vision as "developing a a digital economy for openness". Don't forget that Apple is very good at marketing, and will change their message to fit the market.

"Homosexual" is not strictly offensive, but does mark you as potentially holding regressive views. It's easy enough to see from context that you're probably okay, but you can't always count on context.

You can just say gay.

-- Signed, The Gays

I just assumed it was the PC version, like African American. No offense meant

-- Signed, totally a friend of the Gays

we're getting super off topic here, but my understanding is that 'black' is actually becoming more PC and acceptable largely because many black people are neither African nor American

To those of us who are, it sounds excessively clinical, most of us dont like thinking of our sexuality in a clinical way. Also the poster is not wrong, talking about homosexuality, is cool and okay, calling someone a homosexual is often a language flag that they may be less than open minded.

This might all be true, but is there ever going to be a point where we assume positive intent? We shouldn’t be inferring deep-seeded psychological attributes in every day communication. It’s super likely that nothing at all was meant by using the clinical term.

I didnt see a lack of good faith in the discussion, it was more of a "hey, you might wanna know, that using that particular word associates you with this group you might not want association with" - which if anything is an assertion that requires good faith to make.

For sure, TIL! Thanks random hn gay person!

I can't reply to your other one because of HN max-thread rules, but yeah. My wife has a masters in social work, or as we like to joke, is a professional social justice warrior. Keep fighting the good fight.

Speaking on behalf of all gays? Even if you’re gay, I’d be pretty sure you’re mostly just capable of speaking for yourself. Either way it’s a bummer you were offended.

So how should he have said it?

Afaik Apple went above and beyond to make sure their original iPhone fingerprint sensor never leaked the fingerprint to any app or even the OS itself. Android always just did whatever with the print.

If that's the same philosophy now, Apple is definitely better than Google in terms of privacy.

Full disclosure: I own an Android device and no Apple product except an iPod from 2009 or so.

Is it really private though if it's all being collected, encryption and all, to be decrypted at a future date when the technology is available? All data on the net is captured by the NSA and stored at multiple data centers. One's in Utah. No company can really claim privacy if their product touches the internet since all of the pipes are tapped. It's all semantics. Maybe saying "we don't directly..." or "we don't make it easy..." would be more accurate. There is no privacy on the net, period. It's temporary privacy in the immediate present at best. 5 years from now? They might be able to decrypt everything from the last 10 years that they already have stored. It's guaranteed at some point. 6 years ago Snowden also revealed Apple was on board with the data collection. They are lying, and people don't care and go along with the show. https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/21/nsa-leaker-edward...

Except they don’t send it over the internet and it never leaves the device

My larger point was about all of the data, not biometrics specifically. Great, your fingerprint never left the device. Everything else does, which is probably way more personal data than just a fingerprint. Your fingerprint really does me no good unless I want to try to frame you for a crime, or want to get into your specific device or other thing that requires biometrics (maybe your work). Your data, I can make use of a lot of if I were criminally inclined. Your credit card numbers, your ssn, your investment accounts, your pics for making false ID's, passwords, or any other data that has ever flowed from your device. You'd have to be pretty sophisticated to be able to make use of someones fingerprints, while basically anyone could use your credit card number. Which is more valuable and larger vector for exploit?

None of the data you describe ever leaves the device unless you opt in to syncing it to iCloud (which is not on by default). The FaceID/Fingerprint never leaves the device and if you don't enable iCloud syncing of the other data off the device the data is unreachable with keys kept on the device.

Its reasonable to think things encrypted today with good methodologies are likely to remain secure forever.

NSA can't change the fundamental laws of the universe. While cryptology and mathematics is constantly advancing, there hasn't been a fundamental breakage of a block cipher in ages, nor has any evidence emerged to suggest the fundamentals of RSA will be broken.

Computing power alone isn't enough to break todays strong cryptography, and its certainly possible that the underlying math is a constant of the universe.

Edit: Not to mention the snowden leaks suggests that the NSA spends most of their effort subverting implementations rather than the fundamental mathematics.

Apple are primarily a hardware company. They make money on the sale of devices. They also make some money as a marketplace for apps and media. They have no significant revenue from data harvesting or advertising sales.

Google are an advertising company. The overwhelming majority of their revenue is from targeted advertising. Their ability to harvest user data is the primary factor affecting their bottom line.

For Apple, privacy is a no-brainer. It doesn't harm either of their primary revenue streams and it gives them a substantial point of differentiation against their main competitor. Apple have an ongoing commercial imperative to improve the privacy of their products and services; Google have an ongoing commercial imperative to the contrary.

They also make a lot of money in China where betraying their users privacy was required to enter. And that was almost the same week then their CEO, Tim Cook, told on camera that privacy is "fundamental human right". I guess he doesn't consider Chinese people human.

What would you have done?

How about withdrawl, like Google did?

I'm currently on my first iPhone. They spell out what they do with data in just about every app and setting. There's an almost annoying number of modals related to privacy and general control of data.

Maybe it's all for show, but they seem to take privacy seriously.

It's a fair question. For starters, comparing the business models, and how iOS implements privacy relevant aspects vs. how Android does so, might lead to reasonable assumptions.

It is in the best financial interests of Apple to protect user data. Mr. Cook has a fiduciary responsibility to do so.

Apple's business model is not selling your data for advertisements. They make their money the old-fashioned way - charging customers for their product (hardware).